22 Days
by Ben Barrett
Summary: ...was all it took to change their lives forever. What do you do when your love for a person conflicts with your faith? Do you abandon your faith or abandon your love? Style. Rated T for language. AU.


**22 Days  
**by Ben Barrett

**Dedication**

_For "Angel". I love you._

* * *

_Late night,  
early morning,  
we talked until there was nothing left to say.  
It was strange  
the war was on  
but I've never felt so safe  
and I've never seen better days._

_-Better Days_, Josh Joplin Group

_I do not kill with my gun; _  
_He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. _  
_I kill with my heart._

_-Gunslinger's Creed, The Dark Tower, _Stephen King

**Chapter One – Messages From A Stranger**

3:30AM. Damn insomnia was kicking his ass again. All he wanted was some pleasant dreams and some peace from the discordia of thoughts in his head, but of course that was denied him. Not because he was a regular sufferer of insomnia, no, but _because_ of the thoughts racing through his head like an insane monorail train racing toward its own destruction. He went around and around with these thoughts in an endless loop, not wanting to continue to follow them to their inevitable conclusions but doing so anyway in spite of himself, and always finding himself back where he started from at the end. He begged the thoughts to have mercy, to have pity, to let him rest in peace or just let him die, but they were merciless.

The thoughts were of his own homosexuality. For a long time, he had called himself homosexual and had embraced the lifestyle. He had dated other men, sometimes with disastrous results, and had once even been engaged to one. Eventually, he had thrown himself into his Catholicism and had sworn off his previous choices, going so far as to join anti-gay and pro-family groups on Facebook. For two years, his News Feed had been filled with pictures of Jesus, messages from pastors and notable Christian celebrities and musicians. Many of the things he saw were nonsense posts like _Oh, if you send this to fifteen friends within fifteen minutes, God will bless you fifteen different ways on fifteen different days, _but he had taken these things with a grain of salt. He felt the rewards of having other people of faith as his friends had benefits that far outweighed the bullcrap.

Recently, though, his facade of being a straight, Jesus-loving Christian was beginning to wear thin. He loved Jesus for sure, but the thoughts of homosexuality were beginning to creep back in, thoughts he thought he had banished from his life forever. He had even been fond of telling people that Jesus had "cured" him of his "affliction". Apparently, that hadn't been entirely true, because he was starting to fall back into old habits. It had started as simple thoughts like _Boy, that guy is kinda cute _or _I wonder if he likes to cuddle_, but had gradually worsened. Lately he'd been fighting the urge to look up gay porn on the internet. A voice in the back of his head told him that it wouldn't hurt to take a little look, to maybe do a simple Google search (filters off) for "penis" or "blowjob" and see what came up. He knew, though, that it was never that simple. If he let his urges get the better of him, even just a little bit, he would be forever lost, and he was still trying desperately to hold onto whatever faith he had left.

Giving up on the idea of getting any sleep, he wandered over to his computer and booted it up. In his secret life, a life his congregation knew nothing about, he was a gay fiction writer. He only had one book to his name at this point, and it was selling like space heaters in hell, but he had a few fans here and there. He would never let his spiritual advisers or the members of his Bible study group know about it, because the results of that would be unthinkable. It was like he was leading a double life, that he had an entirely different personality that no one in his personal life knew anything about. Made him feel like a secret agent or something, like he was running covert operations. In reality, he knew, he was just a hypocrite. How could he write these gay love stories while going to church on Sunday and nodding and mumbling "Amen" any time someone said that the gays were going to roast in hell for eternity unless they repented?

If he wanted to be honest with himself, and lately he hadn't been doing much of that, the source of his problem was his writing. While church was good for getting in touch with the Man Upstairs, homosexual erotica only served to dig up feelings and urges that he was trying desperately to repress. Something had to give eventually. He either had to give up his writing, which he would not do, or write Christian stories, which he had tried to do and failed, or leave the church, which was looking more and more appealing every day. He did not want to give up his faith, because as much as he enjoyed a good gay romance, he was far too afraid of burning in hell for eternity.

His computer finally finished booting and he went to his favorite message forum, a place where gay writers gathered to swap ideas and talk about the craft they loved so much. Nothing much had changed since he'd been here four hours ago. No one was on at such an ungodly hour, and if they were they were probably off on other parts of the internet. Nobody except for Stan, it seemed, wanted to talk about gay fiction at 3:30 in the morning.

_Can't say I blame them. If I had any say in the matter, I'd probably be sleeping, too._

He was about to close the browser and maybe see if smoking a joint or something (one of his other secret vices) would help him to finally drift off when he noticed that someone had sent him a Personal Message. Unfortunately, the only messages he had really received from anyone on this forum thus far had been people looking for a lover of some kind. He had received three in all, all of them wanting to know what his sign was, what his turn ons were, if he liked to cuddle or just get right down to it and ride the Tower of Power. He had been polite with all of them and hadn't brought religion into it, but had told them that he wasn't interested in pursuing any kind of romance at the current time, which was true. The aforementioned fear of burning in hell kept him from any kind of gay relationship. He could tell, however, that this message was different from the get-go. This was not someone looking for a lover, but someone in need of a helping hand. Why they had chosen him of all people was a mystery.

_Greetings, Mr. Marsh_

_I know you don't know me from the ice cream man, but you can call me Mordecai for now. I wanted to tell you that I really love the originality of your stories. They are some of the more realistic ones out there. I'm serious. I'm so sick of seeing the old rehashing of two friends who are in love but can't tell each other, or two lovers who can't tell their families because they'd never be accepted. You at least try to keep your plots pretty original._

_Anyway, I want to ask your advice. I don't know if it's even right going to you with this, but I'm going to take a shot in the dark anyway, because you're an author I respect a great deal. I hope you don't mind._

_I've been suffering with depression and feeling alone. I have no balance. I'm an aspiring author, and I want to write gay fiction, too. I mean, not the way you do. I'd just like to be able to write some stories that people enjoy. I'm not really interested in pursuing it as a career. The problem is, my faith is incompatible with homosexuality. __I'm gay, or __maybe bisexual. I'm not sure right now. Yet my Judaism prevents me from participating in that lifestyle. My faith means too much me to give it up, yet I still need some kind of outlet for these feelings, ya know? I enjoy writing gay fiction so much. It's a great hobby for someone who likes to write only recreationally. Does that make me a hypocrite to claim to be devoted to G-d, yet participate in such things? _

_I hope you can find the time to give me some advice. It would mean a lot coming from you. You might not even be struggling with the issue, I don't know. I just need an honest opinion on what to do. Do I keep writing this stuff while reading my Torah and going to synagogue, or should I give up the fiction? What would you advise me to do?_

_Thanks in advance for your help._

_-Mordecai_

Stan might as well have been struck by a lightning bolt. What fuckery was this? Did God have some part in this or was this all just a coincidence? Surely this Mordecai fellow couldn't know that he was having the same internal debate; he'd said as much himself. He didn't know if he believed in divine intervention in this day and age, but if it existed this was as close to it as he'd ever come. He was having this big struggle of faith versus what seemed to be a part of his nature that he couldn't control, and here comes someone out of the blue asking him for advice on it. If God did have His hand in this, what did He really expect Stan to say? He couldn't provide Mordecai with answers that he himself had not figured out, and he certainly didn't want to brush him off with some generic bullshit answer. Something within him was screaming at him that to brush off this person would be the worst thing he could ever do.

He lit up a cigarette and stared at the screen, as if expecting the answers to appear there. They didn't, of course, and he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He needed to seriously think about this one. He didn't know why it mattered so much to him. He didn't even have to reply. He could just delete the message and he would probably never hear from this person again, whoever he was. Was stressing about it really necessary?

_What if it _was_ divine intervention, though? What if the Almighty sent this person to you and expects you to help them? How's it going to look if you just disregard them and go look at some stupid piano playing cat on YouTube? Prick._

He hit the REPLY button and began composing a message. He tried three times before he finally settled on one that he thought sounded acceptable.

_You sound just like me. I too have struggled with homosexuality in my life. When I joined the church and became a Christian, I tried writing Christian stories but that was a joke. I was terrible at it, man. In the end, my true self came out and I went back to writing homoerotic fiction. It's what I'm good at. It's what I've always done. For me to try and write something "scripturally based" is not only against my nature, but I felt like I was just doing what everyone else wanted me to do. I can't write that stuff. It's not who I am. Seriously, I love Jesus, but read some of the stuff I've written and posted on the internet. Read what's in my book. I don't write things that you WANT to hear. I write about stuff that actually happens. I write without filters, and that is totally incompatible with my faith. I won't lie to you and tell you that religion and gay fiction can coexist, because in the eyes of the faithful, writing gay fiction is promoting homosexuality. I do it anyway. I'm so tired of other people telling me what I can and can't do. Besides, I need an outlet of some kind. Religion says that not only can I not practice homosexuality, I shouldn't even have a way to express my repressed feelings. I think it's much healthier to write some stories and live vicariously through my characters than go sleep with another man. If I did that, they REALLY wouldn't like it, so I figure, hey get off my back and leave me alone. At least it's a healthy form of expression and not some random sexual episode that I was driven to because they won't cut me any slack. Just my opinion, though, and you know what they say about opinions. _

_It ultimately comes down to your personal convictions. If you feel God telling you not to do it, then don't do it. The Bible says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, which basically means focus on what God is telling YOU to do. Don't worry about what anyone else is doing or what people might tell you you need to do. Consult with the Almighty and let Him direct you. I can't provide you with a definitive answer, because that's ultimately between you and Him. I can just tell you what my take is on it and the conclusions I've come to. If you ever need to talk to someone, I'm just a PM away. I understand everything you're going through, even the depression, which I've dealt with all my life._

_Take care._

_-Stan_

Satisfied he had given a satisfactory answer, he shut down his computer and went back to his bed. He felt a little more at ease that maybe he had helped someone through their crisis. That didn't make him fucking Mother Theresa or anything, but it at least gave him a little peace of mind.

He was asleep in minutes.

* * *

The next morning he met his friend Butters for lunch at the local McDonald's, where he ordered off the dollar menu. The money he made off of his book didn't pay for much of anything, and he usually had to take minimum wage jobs to offset his living expenses. This meant that he had to eat cheap, smoke cheap cigarettes (or sometimes not smoke at all, which drove him batshit) and save every penny he could. Butters often offered to buy him something more expensive than a couple of McDoubles and a small bag of fries, but he always refused. He tried to be self-sufficient whenever he could, and that meant not taking what he viewed as "hand outs", though he never said this directly to Butters or anyone else out of fear of hurting their feelings.

"W-well, gee, Stan," Butters said, opening up his sandwich and taking off the pickles he had asked them not to put on in the first place. Butters would not complain, however; he never did. He would just deal with it. Leopold "Butters" Stotch, doormat for the entire world. "I think it's great that you could give someone such great advice."

Stan had filled Butters in on what had happened on the ride over. Their conversation had been put on hold while standing in line, so as to keep it out of the public forum as much as possible, but at their private table they picked it right back up.

"That's just it, Butters," Stan said. "I don't feel like I did all that much. I mean, I guess it helped me sleep a little better to know I did _something_, but how am I supposed to feel good about giving someone advice that I don't even follow myself?"

"Wh-what do you mean?" Butters replied.

"Well, take when I told him not to write if God told him not to," Stan explained. "It's a fine thing for me to say that while not practicing the same thing, isn't it? I don't know if it's really God or my own programmed fears and reservations from an entire lifetime of Catholicism, but I don't always feel right about what I do. Makes me kind of a hypocrite doesn't it? Shouldn't surprise me. That's nothing new for me."

"I don't think it makes you a hypocrite, Stan," Butters said. "Why, I don't think it makes you a hypocrite at all. You gave someone some real good advice. Even though it was advice that you don't follow yourself, didn't you tell him that you knew what you're doing is against your faith, but that you're doing it anyway? Doesn't sound to me like you said nothin' wrong."

"I guess that makes sense," Stan admitted. "Doesn't make me feel any better though. I mean, how can I keep going to church and calling myself a good Catholic if I'm doing all of this stuff on the side? Seems kinda two-faced."

"It is," Butters said, "but I'll tell you one thing. My dad used to live a double life like that. He would pretend to be a straight family man while sneaking around and getting into all kinds of shenanigans with other men at gay bath houses and stuff. He tried to hide it from us, but we found out. Made my mom crazy, and she never trusted him again. He lived a long time as a pretty miserable person till he realized that he was lyin' to himself and everyone else. He eventually divorced my mom and got himself a gay lover, and I guess that makes Roy kinda like my second dad, but he's a lot happier now. So is my mom."

"Your dad has a boyfriend named Roy?"

"Sure does," Butters said. "Guy is obsessed with getting to know me and chopping firewood all the time. Really strange, he is. Point is, Stan, that you won't be happy until you decide what you really want. I reckon as soon as you figure that out, why, life will be a whole lot easier for you."

After lunch, Stan went back to his little rental house, a one-bedroom cabin at the rear of a trailer park. He thought about what Butters said for hours. Although he and his friends had ridiculed Butters through school, Butters was actually a really intelligent person. A bit neurotic, sure, but that was to be expected. His father had been a closet homosexual who had been savage in his punishment of him and his mother had once tried to kill him. He was often grounded for stupid reasons, sometimes for answering the phone and forgetting to take a message or simply coming home from school a little later than they expected. He had developed nervous tics, like biting his lips and wringing his hands and bouncing nervously from foot to foot. It could be irritating, but it could also be cute at times. Stan couldn't deny he had wondered what kind of lover Butters would be.

But, of course, that was not relevant to his current issue. Butters had told him that he had to make peace with himself and decide what he wanted before he would ever be happy, and he was right about that. He needed to decide if he wanted to be gay or be a Christian. He couldn't have it both ways, at least not in the traditional sense. There were gay churches, sure, but he didn't know if he would be comfortable with that.

At some point he dozed off and dreamed of being chased by red-eyed Christians waving crosses and shouting that he was an abomination. They wanted to burn him and his lover, whom he could not see but could sense running alongside him, at the stake. He tried and tried to get away while simultaneously shouting over his shoulder at them that love could not be wrong, that God commanded us to love, but his pursuers were having none of it. They would not be satisfied until he was burned on the Charyou Tree. As they got closer, he could feel the hatred rolling off of them like waves, hatred for what he was and the things he did. They reached for him, and he saw that their hands were demonic claws complete with long, black nails.

He woke just as one of the hands clamped down on his shoulder. He sat up in bed with a shout, his body drenched in cold sweat. He looked around in confusion and his eyes landed on his bedside military clock. It read 19:19, or 7:19PM, which was far later than he wanted to sleep. He got up and went to his computer to see if Mordecai had written back to him. He didn't know why he cared if a complete stranger wrote back to him or not, but some part of him was actually _hoping_ that he had. He _wanted _to hear from him again. Was this because he was genuinely interested in the person, or because he maybe (a little selfishly) wanted validation that his advice had helped, or was it because he just wanted someone to talk to who wasn't Butters?

The response was there. It read:

_I'd love to get to know you on a more personal level if you don't mind. I don't want to push you by any means, but I just think you're a really cool guy, and a great inspiration in my writing. I guess I could start by telling you my name. I'm Kyle and I just turned 26. I'm a Social Worker who works in a middle school here in North Park, because I want to try and help other kids who struggle. I want to give them a place to vent their frustrations and maybe give them some advice that will help them. I'm studying on the side to become a Rabbi, if that's where I'm being called. I may always be attracted to men, but I'm really trying to learn to control that attraction with prayer and counseling. I also use my stories as an outlet, just like you do. I love writing stories, reading books, and making music of all kinds. I'm not even above playing the occasional video game. Have you ever played Terrance and Phillip: The Elder Bowels? Great game. Anyway, you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. I'm sure you're a busy guy and you don't have all the time in the world to just chat with people online._

_-Kyle_

Stan wasn't sure if he wanted to connect with a complete stranger, yet something inside was telling him to go for it, that this person was not the average Internet screwball. He couldn't quite explain it, but he felt that Kyle was someone special. Call it a fluke, call it wishful thinking, hell call it _ka_; all Stan knew was that there was a strong, almost irresistible urge to reach out to Kyle. So he did. Instead of sending him a straight message, he sent him a link to his Facebook profile. Within seconds, there was a friend request from someone named Kyle Broflovski. The picture showed a gangly boy with red hair and freckles on his nose. A ginger, sure, but God he was gorgeous. He accepted the request and immediately sent Kyle a message. This message was so simple, yet it would ultimately change both of their lives forever.

It simply said "Hi."

It would be the first of many.


End file.
